17. Integrity is revealed by minor as well as major transgressions
A minor transgression can have bigger consequences than major wrongdoing, because it should be easier to resist small temptations than big ones. A minor transgression therefore indicates a lack of integrity more than a big transgression. Moreover, the smaller the transgression the smaller the advantage enjoyed, and so the worse it is that a person has risked serious consequences for it. It is therefore particularly important for SPs to act with integrity when it comes to small matters.
The seriousness of a lapse, a breach of integrity, depends on several factors, such as the number of victims and the extent to which they were deceived. Leaking confidential information is less serious if no one suffers as a result than if lives of soldiers and diplomats are threatened, for example. This means the greater the SP’s mistake is, the more the SP’s integrity is at stake. It is with good reason that the ten leaders accused of embezzling the most funds from their countries are seen as the world’s most corrupt political leaders. Over the past two decades the list has been topped by Indonesian president Mohamed Suharto (between $15 billion and $35 billion), followed by president of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos (between $5 billion and $10 billion), President of the Democratic Republic of Congo Mobuto Sese Seko ($5 billion), president of Nigeria Sani Abacha (between $3 billion and $5 billion), and president of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milošević ($2.1 billion).90
However, we must beware of allowing this line of thinking to become a justification for small transgressions, as if only big transgressions matter, not minor lapses. Minor mistakes can in fact have serious consequences. They can even have more serious consequences than big mistakes. There are SPs who have had to resign after errors such as a single instance of a misplaced remark onTwitter, racy photo, carelessness with confidential information, acceptance of a gift that was too expensive, driving an uninsured car, falsely claiming a diploma on their CV, or falsifying a signature.
How can a minor error have such far-reaching consequences? The error reveals a personal failing once and for all. Just as the integrity of a painting is damaged by a large gash or a small scratch, the integrity of a person is damaged, whether their transgression is large or small. The loss of stainlessness is the same, whether the stain is big or small.
However, this in itself is no reason for the consequences of a minor error being greater than those of a major error. The reason for that is that it should be easier to resist small temptations than large ones, so it should be easier to maintain integrity in the face of small temptations, meaning that a small transgression expresses a greater shortfall in integrity. If you abandon integrity for a small temptation, you will do so all the more easily given a bigger incentive, so the thinking goes. Small transgressions say something about the chance of big transgressions, but big transgressions say nothing about the chance of small transgressions.
Furthermore the smaller the transgression the smaller the relationship with the advantage obtained. After all, every transgression carries a risk to reputation, so it is all the more naïve to engage in minor transgressions instead of major ones. It was partly for this reason that there was uproar when Václav Klaus, president and former prime minister of the Czech Republic, stole the Chilean president’s pen while at a press conference in Chile, slipping it into his pocket. His action was caught on tape and shown around the world.91
It was partly for this reason that there was uproar in the UK about the expenses claims of British members of parliament. If a minister claims a few pounds for a porn film rental, it raises the question of why someone would risk their job for such a trifling amount. The minister involved, Jacqui Smith, subsequently resigned.92
There is an alternative explanation for the outrage over false expenses claims in the UK, including claims such as €1.75 euros for a pot of jellied eels, €0.75 for a carrier bag, €1.12 for dust cloths, and €1.45 for tealights. Such claims raise the question of how SPs ever came up with the idea of claiming such expenses, and where they found the time.93 The expectation that SPs should be serving the people is difficult to reconcile with such practices. This behavior creates the impression that SPs are concerned with other business and out for maximum personal gain. For this reason such misdemeanors are not so much <